Function or method Overloading and overriding method is very basic and useful feature of any oop language. In this tutorial we will discuss implementation of method overloading and overriding in php. Here first we will explore basics of overloading and overriding. After exploration of basics we will implement overloading and overriding in php. Before going further I am assuming that you have basic knowledge of classes and inheritance in php. Also you have understanding about magic method in php. Magic method because overloading in php can be implmented using magic methods.
What is Method Overriding in OOP ?
Basic meaning of overriding in oop is same as real word meaning. In real word meaning of overriding phenomena of replacing the same parental behavior in child. This is same in case of method overriding in oop. In oop meaning of overriding is to replace parent class method in child class. Or in simple technical word method overriding mean changing behavior of the method. In oop overriding is process by which you can re-declare your parent class method in child class. So basic meaning of overriding in oop is to change behavior of your parent class method.
Normally method overriding required when your parent class have some method, but in your child class you want the same method with different behavior. By overriding of method you can complete change its behavior from parent class. To implment method overiding in oop we commonly create same method in child class.
What is Method Overloading in OOP ?
Overloading in oop is same as overloading in real word. In real word overloading means assigning extra work to same machine or person. In oop method overloading is same. By process of method overloading you are asking your method to some extra work. Or in some cases we can say some different work also.
Normally method overloading in oop is managed on the basis of the argument passed in function. We can achieve overloading in oop by providing different argument in same function.
Overloading and Overriding in PHP
Hope your basic concept of overloading and overriding is clear now. Now let us explore implementation of overloading and overriding in php.
Implementation of overriding in php is very easy. If your parent class has a function. You can create function with same name in your child class to override the function. Implementation of overriding can not be achieved by creating 2 function with same name and different argument in php. Because we can not create same name function more than 1 time in php class. To implement overloading we need to take help of magic method in php. In below section we will explore overloading and overriding one by one.
Overloading in PHP
As we know that we can not implement overloading by create 2 function in with same name in class. So to implement overloading in php we will take help of magic method __call. Magic method __call invoked when method called by class object is not available in class. So here we will not create method exactly and will take help of __call method. Now call method will provide us 2 argument, 1st name of the method called and parameter of the function. Now with the help of either switch case or if else we will implement overloading in php. Following is very simple example of overloading in php.